Nairobi's severe housing problem is particularly evident in the highly overcrowded informal settlements which accommodate about 55 percent of the City's population. The households in these areas have poor access to services such as safe water, sanitation and solid waste disposal, and are thus exposed to the dangers of ill-health and disease. At the same time, frequent demolition of temporary dwellings destroys the lives and homes of the City's poor. The shelter problem is intensified by the exorbitantly high rents for single rooms in the low-income areas brought about largely by a poor housing market. A notable constraint to improvement here is the limited supply of serviced settlement, while another important feature is the extremely rapid growth of unserviced peri-urban settlements.

WAC started off as the church's modest response to the cry of the poor people of Dandora who for reasons of poverty could not develop plots allocated by the city Council, thus risking dispossession.

It all started in 1980 when the then Parish priest of Holy Cross Catholic church, Dandora, became acutely aware and concerned about the number of the poor people faced with the prospect of eventually losing their plots because they could not develop them. He started consultations and negotiations with the City Council Housing Development (HDD) and the result was the formation of an Advisory Committee, a forum bringing together representatives of the church, HDD and the beneficiaries.

WAC then embarked on fund-raising efforts and was soon able to get favorable response from the Holy Cross Congregation, Justice and Peace Fund and other donors from Holland. The other donor who was closely associated with the inauguration of the scheme is Ford Foundation. The generous donations from these partners, who have keen interest in urban poverty alleviation, became the nucleus of WAC's present Housing Revolving Fund.

But what is the explanation and background of this situation where a scheme that was meant to benefit the urban poor turned out to be their worst enemy? The history of the site-and-service scheme goes back to 1976 when the Kenyan Government and the World Bank signed an agreement on the site-and-service scheme. The project was to cover Nairobi's Dandora, Ngei II, Huruma, Mathare North and Kayole.

The Housing Development Department (HDD) was created by the agreement and would be the implementing agency. The Department would provide basic infrastructure and services, like water, roads, schools, community centres and markets. The plots allocated had toilets and in some instances a room and kitchen. The assumption was that the allottees would occupy these as they continue to develop the plot through self-help.

Unfortunately, financial problems set in as soon as the plots allotments were made. The poorest of the allottees did not qualify for the disbursements from the World Bank's Fund. The allottees could not sell the plots for at least five years or mortgage them for assistance from other agencies since they were already on loan and the allotment cards lacked legal weight. Inflation also reduced the value of the maximum loan available making it impossible for the allottees to complete the houses-unfinished houses became additional burdens to them.

Apart from financial problems there were social problems that made self-help efforts impossible. The scheme had brought together thousands of people who were unknown to one another and therefore lacked any sense of cohesion and neighborhood. The situation was worsened by the fact that these people were socially and economically marginalized and a big fraction had been surviving on illegal activities like brewing chang'aa (a low income but illegal liquor business). There was a huge number of school drop outs among them. These set of factors soon brought about a sense of insecurity and mutual distrust.

From 1980, WAC has continued to assist poor families, improve their housing conditions by providing medium sized loans at terms affordable to them. Over 80% of the beneficiaries are women.

There are a number of problems that affect repayment of housing loans. They include poverty which makes it difficult for tenants to pay, late payment of rent because of low income and problems like high school fees.